puzzle cube
by januarylightsphere
Summary: (FemMibuchi/Akashi) There is something that only genius can do? As if! She'll solve it on her own. She doesn't need his help!


**Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basket.**

**Warnings: Grammar errors, genderbending, OOCs.**

**Dedicated to Lea, my younger sister. Not much romance as everyone expected, though. I'msosorry.**

* * *

"Argh!"

Do not misunderstand, Mibuchi Reina didn't lose her temper. It was just she didn't know what to do. She'd been dealing with, with this thing for the whole morning and had she made any progress yet? For God's sake, no! This cube had deceived her its innocent look (she repeated, in-no-cent), and succeeded in driving her insane. She'd found it lying on her living room while cleaning and thought it'd be fun, because she'd been so bored! No, don't you dare talk about basketball practice! She'd get her ankles injured three days ago and Sei-chan wouldn't let her practice until she fully recovered. (He'd said: "It'll be worse if you go too hard on yourself!" Damn!)

Boredom led to whim. And she'd started with the cube.

She was now regretting.

"Argh!" She let out another frustrated sound.

Nebuya didn't bother to look up from the his lunchbox. "Are you going to eat? If not, give me yours."

She glared at the cube before turning her eyes to him. Perhaps she should hit him with that thing to make him more decent. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Eikichi."

Hayama, who was previously chatting animatedly gave her a strange look. And being the brat he was, instead of offering to help her, he said: "You haven't solved that toy yet?"

Mibuchi pondered how to throw the so-called toy at those two's heads.

"It's not a toy." She was too tired of telling him the simple fact. "It's very complex structure. Only overly complex structures can drive me insane."

"It's simple, isn't it?" Hayama shrugged. "You only have to put all the same color together, right?"

"That's the problem!" She said, tossed it around for a few more times (it'd be a waste if she decided to throw it at Kotarou's head.), spun the colors a few more times, twirled around her hands a few more times and slammed it on the table. "I did one. But I can't complete all the color."

Answered her was Nebuya's sound of eating.

Mibuchi scowled.

Kotarou looked up at the ceiling. "I wish Mayu-chan-senpai was here. He likes puzzles. Even though he isn't exactly fond of us, he'll help her."

"Of course, he's a gentleman, unlike you two. That's why he's got a girlfriend while you two haven't."

"You don't have a boyfriend, either." Nebuya grunted.

"Because we all have club activities, and that including you." Hayama told her. "Mayu-chan-senpai is free, at Tokyo University, with that eagle girl, who I think shouldn't be considered a girl."

"Mayuzumi-senpai, huh?" Mibuchi said, twirling the cube around her fingers. "Forget it, I'll work it out eventually."

"Eat first." Nebuya said.

Hayama suddenly clasped her shoulder. "I've got a brilliant idea."

"Sure." She didn't believed.

"Yes." He caught her sarcasm. "Let Akashi try it, doesn't he have the IQ of 400 or something...?"

He wasn't even able to complete his sentence. Immediately, the girl cut him off with a sharp "No" and went back to moping.

Hayama gave a look to Nebuya, wondering what was wrong; the only reply he got was a shrug.

"But it's just a toy..." He tried again to persuade her, and Mibuchi sent him a glare, "Okay, a very complex structure. Do you think you can solve it on your own?"

"Eventually."

"Good luck with that." Hayama said. Except for basketball, he didn't think she had enough patience for something complex. With that, he turned back to eating his lunch, and Mibuchi, miraculously, still played with the accursed cube while managing to eat hers.

She glared draggers at it, as it sat in front of her, naive and unknowingly. Okay, perhaps in others' eyes it didn't look like that, but all she was was a smug and arrogant expression, with a big fat smirk on his face.

If it had a face.

"Don't you dare challenge me!" She gritted her teeth, fighting with it. (She didn't lose her temper, got it?).

Nebuya couldn't keep silent anymore. It was an inanimate object, which didn't have eyes to have a staring contest with Mibuchi's large eyes. Had basketball finally made her lose her mind? Or her injured ankle messed with her brain?

"The toy couldn't understand you, you know."

She glared at him, "It's not a toy. It's a complex structure." And then she grabbed the complex structure and began to spin the different color with such a speed that Nebuya didn't understand why she had. "And I'm going to solve it!"

* * *

The fierce fight was still going on. Normally, Mibuchi wouldn't waste her time on something like that, but since Sei-chan insisted that she rest, she had nothing to do. The complex structure hadn't given up yet. She looked like nut, really, while everyone was practicing and she was trying to solve a cube. Even Coach Shirogane gave her a look while he thought she wasn't looking.

Blame the captain, Coach. Blame the captain.

Whoever said Sei-chan became easier after the Winter Cup last year didn't know a single thing.

She grabbed the cube, considered again throwing it into the hoop before going back to the war with it. It was battle of wits and smarts. A battle of patience and endurance.

She had both.

And as Hayama had expected - the cube was winning.

Something in Mibuchi's head cracked.

"Argh! If this cube is solved, I'll kiss someone!"

She was such a fool.

She was spinning it around aimlessly, trying to put all the color together. She ignored every look, every comment, merely focus on finding out the code of the cube.

Until, "I see you haven't solved the puzzle that, Mibuchi-senpai."

She would have ignored it, if it had been someone else, if it had been said by someone else - but the problem is, Akashi Seijuurou wasn't anyone else.

She felt the bench she was sitting on shifted a little as he sat right beside her.

"I thought you was training." Mibuchi began, not looking at him.

"The training is over."

"That's late?" She exclaimed and made the mistake looking at him - his cool and collected figure, his red hair and a pair of eyes that as equally as red, and was there a smile? - she looked at the cube in her hands. "Can't believe that I forget the time. I'm sorry." She jumped up, ignored the pain in her ankle. He was right, it hurt like hell.

"You've been frustrated with it lately." He said, looked at the complex structure. "It's called a rubik cube."

"I know what's called." She said automatically.

He chuckled. "Patience is a virtue, Mibuchi-senpai."

She didn't need to hear that. "I'm patient."

Here went the attempt to ignore him. Alright, who could ever ignore Akashi Seijuurou?

"You haven't been patient with yourself."

She stared at him. Akashi sighed, took the cube from her, ever so slowly, so that he didn't get her startled. "You haven't thought of how to solve it. You've only pushed yourself too hard without thinking what process it takes." I_n basketball, in class, in every aspect of life, you push yourself too hard._ But he didn't say it out loud. The reaction would be bad.

Really, really bad.

As he guessed, she frowned, the corner of her mouth twitch, a sign that she thought she was being insulted: "What, I've been analyzing it for two days..."

"Analyzing isn't enough." He said and started spinning the cube like she did, the only difference was that he knew what he was doing. He was thinking of how to say without offending her anymore. "When you analyze, you need to gather all the information you get, select the most important pieces, rearrange to get a result. Just like a computer works, you see."

This was exactly the reason why she didn't want him to solve the puzzle. The senior's pride was a part of it, yes, but the main reason was because he was way too intelligent. It reminded her of all the stupid decisions she'd made in the past. That was why she wanted normal people with normal level of intelligence to help her solve it. They wouldn't make her feel like making a fool of herself. She didn't know why, frankly, she'd never had trouble with his intelligence before. But after the Winter Cup last year, after their loss to Seirin, and more importantly, her loss to her blind flash of intuition, everything wasn't the same anymore.

"I'm not like a computer." She was keeping herself from snapping at him.

"I know." He said, a tiniest hint of smile on his face. "Mibuchi-senpai doesn't have the traits like computer." He continued to twirl and twirl.

He smiled, it was like some sort of secret as ten times as hard to decode. "Why?" She blinked in confusion.

She stood from the bench and placed the now completed cube in her hands. She'd have squealed in delight had she not been busy thinking of his strange behavior.

Akashi began to pack his things, and just when she thought he wasn't going to answer her, he opened his mouth:

"They're nothing near as amusing."

Her cheeks got hot for a second, and she tried to hide that by looking down at the rubik cube. When Akashi hold it, she knew it'd be fixed.

This was the boy who could solve everything, after all.

"I believe you owe me one."

Oh-god-no. She stared at him disbelieving, unconsciously took a step back. No way -

"... One kiss, isn't it?"

* * *

**A/n: It defied the canon. SORRY I COULDN'T HELP ADDING SOME MAYUZUMI/FEMIZUKI IN IT. Argh, I love Mayuzumi too much, so I can't change my avatar.**

**Please review.**


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